A Divided Inheritance (46 page)

‘You will pay with your effort and with your dedication to the art. That is the law under heaven; nothing will be given without a proper exchange. And in the meantime, how are you paying
your maid?’

She looked down guiltily. ‘I have not been able to pay her these last two weeks. And I cannot tell her to leave my employ, she has been ill with the sweating sickness, and besides, where
would she go?’

‘You must pay Martha. That is her name, is it not? As a condition of the training. The payment to me will wait, but you must not keep your maid without giving her fair recompense. What do
you own?’

‘Nothing. A few travelling trunks, my clothing, a few silk shawls, mementoes of home, that is all.’

‘Can you sell any of it?’

‘Well, I’m not sure I could . . . I mean, I don’t really want to part with them . . .’

‘You are mourning Mr Wilmot, are you not?’ She nodded. ‘So you are wearing only this dark gown. Can you wear the silk shawls for the training?’ His eyes were arresting
and slightly amused. She squirmed under his gaze.

‘No, I suppose not.’ She thought of the tawny silk with the ecru lace trim, and the French navy damask with the seed-pearl fringe, both packed with camphor to keep off the moths. All
her gowns had farthingales and stiff busks. And it was true, she had been in the same sleeveless gown all week.

‘Come with me.’ He stood abruptly. ‘Alfonso – call in the gentlemen for afternoon study. We are going out.’ The apprentice bowed, picked up a bell and rattled
it.

Alvarez put on his hat and led the way downstairs with Elspet following. They passed the men clattering up the stone steps; Zachary’s eyes questioned her, but she ignored him.
Alvarez’s stride was long and loping, and yet he did not seem hurried in the slightest. To her surprise he headed out of the yard and down the street. Elspet jogged at his heels.

‘Do you feel the need for a chaperone?’ he asked over his shoulder.

‘No,’ she called.

After a fifteen-minute walk he led her through the Gate of Macarena and outside of the city walls. Before her was a vast sand-coloured building in the classical style.
Señor Alvarez halted. ‘
La Sangre
,’ he said. She had no trouble understanding the word – it meant blood.

Work was still going on there; the paths were unfinished, and labourers could be seen lugging barrows of masonry. She stared at its tile-covered towers rearing into the sky at each corner.
Flanking the main entrance were two impressive family escutcheons and some sculptured stone figures which appeared to be Faith, Hope and Charity. The figure of Faith showed a young winged woman
with a sun radiating from her chest, and a spear in her hand. She was entranced by it.

‘Is this what you wanted me to see?’ she said. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘No. Though you’re right. The carving is very fine. But come, we will go inside,’ he said.

She followed him into the shadowed cool of a long entrance hall, galleried with columns and colonnades. Ahead of her was the entrance to a church. So it was not a palace, after all, but a place
of worship. Nobody stopped them, the long gallery was empty. A woman in a nun’s habit crossed hastily from one side to the other, her sandals slapping on the tiled floor. It made Elspet think
of her sister, Joan.

The nun paid Señor Alvarez no attention at all. From somewhere in the chambers beyond the columns came the sound of someone moaning as if in pain. The lofty ceilings echoed and magnified
it. Down the long paved walkway they walked until a waft of frankincense tickled her nostrils.

The church. He was taking her into the church. She puzzled over what this had to do with her payment for fencing lessons. Above soared a vaulted nave and dome, and before her an alabaster altar
lit by flickering candles. She made the traditional genuflection, and stood off to one side as Señor Alvarez did the same.

‘Ah,’ he said. Ahead of them a woman turned to see who had come in. At the sight of Señor Alvarez, her passive face split into a smile. She bustled over. A sister wearing a
hempen habit in faded grey.

Elspet had thought her to be an older woman, but on closer inspection saw she was not much older than Elspet herself. The misshapen clothes gave her that appearance, and the fact that her hair
was invisible under the nun’s veil.

‘Good to see you, Ramon.’ She leaned forward and embraced Señor Alvarez on both cheeks. Elspet noticed her feet were bare. Long bony toes protruded from under her skirts.

‘Sister Josefa, this is Mistress Leviston. I’ve come to give her a little tour.’

‘Good, good. Follow me, then. Sister Paulina is admitting a few more whilst I am away. A woman just passed away, hence my prayers.’ She talked as she walked. Señor Alvarez
listened intently, stooping to hear her words.

They returned the way they had come and turned sharp left into a corridor from where Elspet heard more moans. As they turned into the room, the first thing that hit her was the stench and the
flies. Instantly she bent to cover her mouth and nose. When she looked up again she took in the rows of trestle beds, and palliasses laid on the floor, and the curious eyes of all the
occupants.

‘Is this . . . a hospital?’ She could barely utter the words. Señor Alvarez was already approaching the first bed where a woman in a malodorous brown garment churned in the
bed.

Josefa whispered to her, ‘Her fever is acute. Its progress is quick, and the symptoms violent. See these livid spots? They show a putrid state of the humours, so we call this fever
malignant. She will not be with us much longer, I fear, but then she is only one of many.’

She gestured around. It was a scene from hell. Some of the women, and they were all women, were ill with the pox. Their faces were unrecognizable because of the disease. Others were wounded, and
the blood was vivid red or dark brown on their bandages. Now she understood why this place was called
La Sangre.

Why had he brought her here? She dared not breathe, for fear of catching some pestilence. She kept her mouth firmly shut. Her hands clutched her chemise at her neck.

‘Without the beneficence of men like Señor Alvarez,
La Sangre
would not exist,’ Josefa said, ignoring her discomfort. ‘The rich men of the city give us alms to
carry out our work here.’

‘No.’ He had overheard and called out, ‘Without the sisters’ charity nothing at all would be possible.’

He kept Elspet there for about a half-hour, but it passed by in a blur. She followed Sister Josefa and Señor Alvarez round the vast wards of patients. Everywhere hung the stench of blood,
urine and the opium poppy, so much so that she longed for a bag of lavender to press to her nose. But she could not fail to be impressed by the sheer vigour of Sister Josefa’s tireless
ministrations – the bloodletting, the wiping of face and body, the ability to sit next to a woman who no longer resembled a woman, with her hair and teeth all gone, and still to smile and
jest with her, pressing her hand in hers.

When they finally came out into the light of the courtyard and she looked back at the grand façade of the building, she was reeling so much she had to sit on a wall at the edge of the
road. The scale of the suffering behind those walls awed her.

‘She is a saint,’ she managed.

Señor Alvarez passed her a flagon. ‘She is. A woman becomes like her only because she wishes to be closer to God. The men of Seville respect her, and uphold her.’

‘Do all the sisters at her convent do this?’ She drank a draught and felt the clean liquid swill her mouth.

‘No, she has no convent. She is a beata. She has vowed chastity and to keep herself only for God’s service. She can come and go in the world as you can, but she owns nothing. She
survives on alms and on God’s grace.’

Elspet comprehended immediately and was humbled. Here she was, wondering whether she could bear to part with her gowns, idling in camphor in their trunks, whereas this woman had nothing –
not even a pair of shoes.

‘They call her the Barefoot Beata,’ he said quietly, as if he had read her thoughts.

‘I have understood well,’ she said to him, standing up. ‘It was a good lesson. I will sell my clothes and make sure Martha is paid, as she deserves to be.’

‘Good.’ He smiled at her, and his eyes danced with light. ‘You have a fine heart, mistress,’ he said, ‘one that will serve like Josefa’s given the right
moment.’

She did not know what to say to this, but a warmth spread inside her. She looked down and saw the yellow dust under her feet, and a small green weed struggling to push its way up through the
cracked ground. His presence heightened her senses somehow, as if he had woken her up from a deep sleep.

As they walked back towards the training yard side by side, she pondered about the sister, Josefa. A woman like herself, yet unencumbered by social rules or by her status as a woman. Elspet
admired her, yet she was not sure she had the courage to be someone like her.

Señor Alvarez halted abruptly at the city gate and hailed a sedan. She was surprised, as she expected to walk, particularly as the sedan was expensive.

He handed the bearers some coins. ‘Go now,’ he said to her, ‘without delay – whilst it is fresh in your mind. Go and seek out what you can sell, and pay Martha. Then you
may come back to the school. If you wait, the fire will go from your action.’

‘Yes, señor. And thank you.’

‘It is nothing. Instruct the bearers, then. There is no time to lose.’

In the cool dark of her room she rang the bell, and Gaxa came. ‘I want to sell these things,’ she said, pointing at the trunks under the bed. Gaxa’s eyes
narrowed, but she said nothing. ‘Can you arrange for someone to call and view?’

Gaxa nodded.

‘Today?’

‘Don’t know about today.’

‘Well, just see. I’d like to do it today, if I can. I’ll wait.’

Gaxa padded away on bare feet. How was it she had only just noticed them? Elspet looked down at her sandals, and pulled out her boots from under the bed and put them to one side. Her dark blue
dress was almost white at the hem with dust. She untied it and stepped out of it, then shrugged out of the sleeveless embroidered doublet too, until she stood in her shift. She had mourned enough.
The hospital had made her grateful for life, for the health and strength of her body.

She scraped the first travelling trunk out from under the bed and fingered the contents. She would keep these – the flannel petticoats and lawn shifts, and the yellow carsey skirt which
was rough as oatmeal, with its square-necked bodice. She kept only one other serviceable gown of walnut brown, smoothing it out on to the bed. Were two gowns too many? She could not decide. She put
aside all the underpinnings – the rowles and the buckram stomacher.

Then she put on the ugly carsey skirt and laced up the bodice.

She held the other gowns in her arms a long while, reluctant to part with her silks and her Norwich satins, worn and faded though they were. She ran her fingers along the fine lace trim on the
front panel of her old favourite, the rose-pink that used to belong to her mother, which she had sewn for her outing to the theatre with Hugh Bradstone. How far away that life seemed now. She had
thought she was heartbroken, but no, she thought, she felt no affection for Hugh any more. It had simply been her pride that was injured.

She folded the gown, marvelled at the lace that had travelled so far just to be a decoration for her vanity. Her thoughts ran to Señor Alvarez. She recognized the shiver of anticipation
at the thought of him, and realized she was more than a little attracted to him. She dismissed it with a shake of the head. It was only natural to feel a degree of attraction for such a teacher. It
did not mean anything.

But if she sold her gowns, then how would she look fetching when she went to the fencing school? She wanted to look attractive for Señor Alvarez, she realized. The thought made her laugh.
Unless she sold her gowns, she could not go back there.

She could not rid herself of the image of the Barefoot Beata, and the palatial surroundings that masked the grim stench of the hospital. Señor Alvarez was right, she was weakening. She
must strike now, whilst there was still some heat left in the iron. She stuffed the fine silks hurriedly back into the trunk and banged down the lid as if closing the lid on temptation itself.

It was not long before Gaxa returned and informed her a merchant had arrived in the lobby below, and that Martha was waiting on him. Elspet went down to greet him, and saw a short, square,
pig-eyed man with what was obviously his son hanging behind him. Martha and Gaxa carried the trunk down between them and dropped it down at his feet.

She asked Martha to show him the gowns and the shoes, fearful she might change her mind. ‘Is she going to buy new gowns?’ Martha whispered to Gaxa, frowning, obviously thinking of
her owed wages. Gaxa shook her head, indicating she did not understand.

‘Perhaps,’ Elspet said loudly, to show her she had heard. Martha bowed her head and bit her lip.

Martha threw out the tawny Norwich silk for the merchant’s inspection. He felt the hem, turned the bodice, pulled at the trim.

‘Five reales.’

The stooping boy behind him concealed a slight smile, so she knew this was a low offer.

She bargained with him until he shook his head and then, tired of it, she said, ‘How much for them all?’

He dragged out her fine-tailored doublets and gowns and held them up to his nose as if to inspect their cleanliness, an act she found deeply offensive. Then he named a ridiculously low figure,
but it would be enough to pay Martha’s wages.

‘Fine,’ she said.

‘Beg pardon, mistress, but are you sure?’ Martha obviously thought she had lost her wits. ‘You can’t even buy a pair of fustian bodyes for that.’

‘On second thoughts,’ Elspet said, ‘I will keep these.’ She gathered up the rose-coloured silk bodice and tie-on sleeves, the lace trimmed overskirt, and the hooped
farthingale.

‘The same price, but one gown less.’ Martha looked relieved.

The merchant was more reluctant, but finally, when she offered him the trunk that contained them too, he prised open his purse and counted out the money. The son watched the whole transaction
with greedy eyes.